"love is a mix tape" [personal]

i remember sitting upstairs with my sister for hours on saturday afternoons listening to the radio.  we sang along, making up words for verses we couldn't remember.  i had a cassette player / radio that we cranked up and danced shamelessly around our pink carpeted floors to; the local country music station jamming.  when an absolute favorite came on the airways i would hit 'record' and capture the tune on one of many blank cassettes i kept stacked beside my modern day music box.

and that was the very beginning of my obsession with mixed tapes.

in high school i made mixed cd's as christmas presents. each song selected for the recipient.  it either reminded me of them or i thought they would appreciate it in ways others may not.

when i went to college i brought stacks of mixed cd's to play on my laptop (i thought bringing my AM/FM radio would be completely UNcool).  most of them were exclusively country, but with a new school and chapter in my life came exposure to a much wider berth of melodies.  i found out about the wonderful world of iTunes and YouTube.  and so my taste in music expanded.

the first mixed cd i made in college included ice ice baby by vanilla ice, fat bottomed girls by queen and our song by taylor swift.  i know, i was all over the place.

when santa brought me an iPod for christmas that year, it only got worse.  playlists ranged from "study musica" which was solely classical, to "2:10 a.m." containing everything from parachute's she (for liz) to conway twitty's i'd just love to lay you down to r kelly's remix of ignition.  naming the compilations of diddies was just as fun as pulling songs for them: underwear (alternative music), exception (songs dedicated to the perfect boy who didn't seem to exist), papa (old country), soundtrack (songs i would have in a movie about my life)... just to name a few.

then i made a new friend.  who also loved mixed cds.  and she started making mixed cds for me.  birthday cd's, christmas cds, getting over a boy you liked who played with your heart and strung you along only to let you down cds, just because cds... there didn't really need to be an occasion... even the simplest of things warranted pulling together tunes from various genres and putting them together to tell a story.  there were falling in love cds, falling out of love cds, party cds, bawling your eyes out cds, summer cds, winter cds, songs to live by cds, don't let what anyone says get you down cds...

danny, my red-headed little brother, even knows the power of a mixed cd.  if you ask him how he's going to get the girl he loves to fall in love with him, his answer is: i'm going to make her a mixed cd with she don't know she's beautiful by sammy kershaw on it. [middle school girls - you have been warned].

mixed cds: the premise is so simple. and yet they hold so much power.

my best friend from high school would always say: 

the boy who gives me flowers, that's the boy i'm going to marry. 

i'm not much for store bought bouquets... don't get me wrong, a handful of wildflowers will make me smile any day, but i always thought the boy who made me a mixed cd would be the one to truly steal my heart.

you see, mixed cd's might seem simple, but really, they're quite complicated.  

when they're done right they tell a story.  

you learn about yourself.  

the person who made it.  

and your relationship with them.

“But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.” 
― Rob Sheffield, Love is a Mix Tape